WORCESTER COUNTY– Oysters are making a comeback in Maryland, thanks in large part to the efforts of oyster recovery programs.
Maryland Department of Natural Resources has been monitoring the status of the state’s oyster population since 1939. In 2012 the DNR completed a two-month survey of 262 oyster bars and 316 samples in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Results were encouraging.
According the survey the 2012 Oyster Biomass Index, a measure of oyster abundance and weight, increased for the second consecutive year and was at its highest level since 1999. The 2012 Spatfall Index, a measure of recruitment success and potential increase of the population obtained by studying fixed subsets of oyster bars, saw a three-fold increase over the 28-year median, representing the sixth-highest spatfall index since 1985.
The Oyster Recovery Partnership is a major reason for the resurgence. Begun 20 years ago, the program has planted nearly 5 billion oysters on 1,600 acres of oyster reefs.
Locally ORP’s Shell Recycling Alliance has made an impact, collecting oysters and hard shell clam shells from restaurants throughout Maryland, Washington D.C., Delaware and Northern Virginia.
“The SRA started with 21 restaurants in the program in 2010 and has grown to over 200 participating establishments four years later,” said Bryan Kent Gomes, a spokesman for the ORP. “The basic premise is that restaurants hold on to their shells for a week – or two or three if they are doing smaller numbers – until they can get to a local transfer station or schedule a pickup in one of our collection markets.”
The SRA provides each restaurant with material that explains the purpose of the program to their customers, and several county and private facilities help store the shells.
Oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay are approximately 1 percent of what they were at their peak 200 years ago.
“In a nutshell oysters in the wild have trouble with reproducing because of the deteriorated water quality in the Chesapeake Bay waterways,” Gomes said. “ORP collects the shells and gets them back to our hatchery in Cambridge where they are cleaned, dried and aged, and then ‘seeded’ with baby oysters and ‘planted’ in the Chesapeake Bay. For every half shell we recycle from a restaurant we average ten baby oysters that get seeded.”
A single adult oyster filters more than 50 gallons of water per day. Oyster reefs are also important habitats for other marine life, including blue crabs and striped bass.
“In Worcester County we have about a dozen restaurants that participate in our SRA program each summer,” Gomes said. “Last summer the Ocean City area restaurants contributed over 750 bushels of shells to the program – enough to plant over three million oysters back into the local waterways.”
The increase in aquaculture, or farmed oysters, has also aided in the oyster resurgence.
“Aquaculture has helped the wild harvest continue to have greater yields the last couple years,” Gomes said. “ORP is a big proponent of more farmed oysters eaten since it requires less of a burden on the wild harvest and helps grow the wild population numbers, and we can recycle farmed oyster shell as easily as wild harvest oysters.”
For more information visit www.oysterrecovery.org.
Maryland Department of Natural Resources has been monitoring the status of the state’s oyster population since 1939. In 2012 the DNR completed a two-month survey of 262 oyster bars and 316 samples in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Results were encouraging.
According the survey the 2012 Oyster Biomass Index, a measure of oyster abundance and weight, increased for the second consecutive year and was at its highest level since 1999. The 2012 Spatfall Index, a measure of recruitment success and potential increase of the population obtained by studying fixed subsets of oyster bars, saw a three-fold increase over the 28-year median, representing the sixth-highest spatfall index since 1985.
The Oyster Recovery Partnership is a major reason for the resurgence. Begun 20 years ago, the program has planted nearly 5 billion oysters on 1,600 acres of oyster reefs.
Locally ORP’s Shell Recycling Alliance has made an impact, collecting oysters and hard shell clam shells from restaurants throughout Maryland, Washington D.C., Delaware and Northern Virginia.
“The SRA started with 21 restaurants in the program in 2010 and has grown to over 200 participating establishments four years later,” said Bryan Kent Gomes, a spokesman for the ORP. “The basic premise is that restaurants hold on to their shells for a week – or two or three if they are doing smaller numbers – until they can get to a local transfer station or schedule a pickup in one of our collection markets.”
The SRA provides each restaurant with material that explains the purpose of the program to their customers, and several county and private facilities help store the shells.
Oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay are approximately 1 percent of what they were at their peak 200 years ago.
“In a nutshell oysters in the wild have trouble with reproducing because of the deteriorated water quality in the Chesapeake Bay waterways,” Gomes said. “ORP collects the shells and gets them back to our hatchery in Cambridge where they are cleaned, dried and aged, and then ‘seeded’ with baby oysters and ‘planted’ in the Chesapeake Bay. For every half shell we recycle from a restaurant we average ten baby oysters that get seeded.”
A single adult oyster filters more than 50 gallons of water per day. Oyster reefs are also important habitats for other marine life, including blue crabs and striped bass.
“In Worcester County we have about a dozen restaurants that participate in our SRA program each summer,” Gomes said. “Last summer the Ocean City area restaurants contributed over 750 bushels of shells to the program – enough to plant over three million oysters back into the local waterways.”
The increase in aquaculture, or farmed oysters, has also aided in the oyster resurgence.
“Aquaculture has helped the wild harvest continue to have greater yields the last couple years,” Gomes said. “ORP is a big proponent of more farmed oysters eaten since it requires less of a burden on the wild harvest and helps grow the wild population numbers, and we can recycle farmed oyster shell as easily as wild harvest oysters.”
For more information visit www.oysterrecovery.org.